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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152744">First Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harp_of_Gold/pseuds/Harp_of_Gold'>Harp_of_Gold</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(no rape on screen), Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Númenor, Platonic Cuddling, Rape Aftermath, Scheming, Second Age, Self-Harm, Survivor Solidarity, Treat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:53:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harp_of_Gold/pseuds/Harp_of_Gold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mairon's arrival in Númenor is everything he's dreaded and worse. But when he finally gets a reprieve, he meets someone unexpected. He finds they have much in common, and that night, an alliance is forged.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ar-Pharazôn/Sauron | Mairon, Sauron | Mairon &amp; Tar-Míriel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Innumerable Stars 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>First Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/gifts">Mertiya</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mairon wept, screaming his violation into the pillows, his hair spread like blood around him as he struggled for breath between wracking sobs. A trickle of the king’s seed was drying on his thighs, and he wanted to rip his own skin off. No bath could ever be hot enough to clean away that touch. He hated Pharazôn, and he hated himself. He hated his powerlessness against the Númenóreans and the way he'd had to pretend willing submission. He hated the way his body had responded to the king moving inside him despite his virulent disgust. He hated the frustration that still roiled low in his belly, itching under his skin. He’d actually felt <i>grateful</i> that the king seemed neither to care about his pleasure nor to expect him to fake it. He didn't <i>want</i> to orgasm at the king's hand. But now his body cried for release, and Mairon thought if he touched himself he might vomit. He bit down on his forearm until it bled, and the other sensations dimmed a little.</p><p>Somewhere a door opened, but he didn't try to quiet himself. If the guards he’d smiled at while raging inside saw him like this, he’d think of lies later. A weight shifted on the bed. Not the guards, then. He was scrambling to arrange his features to greet Pharazôn, though why the slimy bastard had followed him here, he couldn't guess, when a cool hand was pressed to his neck. “Hey. Is Mairon what I should call you? I know just because he dragged you here from Middle-earth doesn't mean he'd take the time to get your name right.”</p><p>A woman's voice. Mairon glanced up into warm brown eyes and nodded. She unfastened the gauzy veil she wore over the lower half of her face and tossed it aside, shrugging her shoulders and heaving a sigh. Turning back, she looked him over, and with a shameful self-consciousness, he realized that what had been done to him was likely all too clear from his disarray. “We’ll survive him,” she said softly. “Here. Can I hold you?”</p><p>His pride struggled against the impulse to take any comfort he was offered, but he couldn't hold out long, and with a fresh little sob, he went into her arms. She stroked his hair and rubbed his back until the wave of tears was exhausted. “Why?” he croaked when he could get a breath. “Why are you being nice to me?”</p><p>“We're both his victims, aren't we? We have to stick together. Take care of each other. No one else will.”</p><p>Mairon wasn't aware of any such obligation, but he knew better than to push away a potential ally. “I don't think we've met before.”</p><p>“Tar-Míriel. Technically I’m Queen. Factually, I'm as much a prisoner as you.”</p><p>It was her he'd glimpsed at the king's side, then. For all his careful observation of the court's dynamics, he'd kept his eyes humbly lowered. He couldn't afford to let his hatred show. There would be time enough later to tie faces to words and voices.</p><p>“And the rightful ruler of Númenor. Not that it means much. Turns out all laws are for nothing when no one has the will to enforce them.”</p><p>“How is it he calls himself king, then?”</p><p>“He had support, not of all the people, but of enough. Of the armies. He promised them renewed greatness, a world that bowed to Númenor. My father the King passed away, and he forced me into marriage and stole my crown. Forced a new name on me. Forced me into his bed.”</p><p><i>That's what she meant about surviving together.</i> Mairon could feel the horror of it, the thought of this night repeated again and again, the weight of knowing there was little he could do to stop it. “Surely…there must be some way you could escape. Get free of all this.”</p><p>“I expect there's some way you could escape, just as much. I expect if your freedom at any cost were all that mattered, you wouldn't have come here in the first place.”</p><p>“I didn't want this,” Mairon hissed, cold and furious. “I didn't want <i>him.”<br/>
</i></p><p>Míriel smiled sadly and took his hands. “I know. It isn't any less rape because you didn't snatch at every possible chance to get out of it. It's no shame to want to live. Or to do what you must for your future.”</p><p>He slumped against her. “He'll raze my kingdom and slaughter my people if I make trouble. I can’t be left with nothing again. I can't let that happen.”</p><p>“Of course you can't. It's the long game, for us both.” Her fingers in his hair were soothing. “I think we both want the same things.”</p><p>“For him to die a slow, excruciating death?”</p><p>“For a start.”</p><p>He shouldn't have said so much. For all he knew, she was preparing to carry all his words straight to Pharazôn. Where was his good sense and his caution? “I didn't…I don't mean…”</p><p>She seemed to grasp his sudden fear. “Did you see how he humiliated me at the banquet? I don't blame you if you didn't; you had enough to deal with yourself.”</p><p>“I saw.” He couldn't have missed the way the king constantly brushed her aside and belittled her, or how he'd laughed when his drunken carelessness spilled wine in her lap.</p><p>“What reason would I have to be loyal when he treats me like that? I hate every hair on his head. You're safe with me.”</p><p>Her word was no guarantee, he knew. But he wanted to believe her. Wanted the comfort of not being alone. He'd already shared more than he should, but she’d shared treasonous thoughts as well, and somehow he didn't think Pharazôn had the cleverness to use her to catch him out. In all their dealings so far, he’d relied on brute force and intimidation, without a hint of true guile. There’d certainly been no signs of acting in the evening’s proceedings, nor any indication that it was outside the norm. It was a gamble to trust her, but he liked the odds. “How do you bear it?” he murmured. “Watching him stride around incompetently bullying your people? How do you bear his touch?”</p><p>“Poorly.” Her laugh was bitter. “Because I have to. Because I keep thinking, someday, if I can just see my way, things will get better. I'll make them better.” She reached for the cups and pitcher on the nightstand and poured for him and herself. The liquid was cold, lightly sweetened and hinting of strawberries and mint. It eased his raw throat.</p><p>“I think I could help you, if you'll help me,” he quietly offered. “It’s like you said. We should stick together.”</p><p>Her slow smile told him everything. A steely, coiled ruthlessness shone from her eyes, and he wondered what it would take to fully win her respect. Her fealty. He wanted it. “I think that would be for the best.”</p><p>“What's keeping you from getting rid of him yourself?” He asked without judgment; he didn't for a moment think it weakness.</p><p>She made a face. “Even if it weren't obvious that I was behind it, the politics aren't in my favor. Suspicion would fall on me, and I’d be pushed aside by his generals. It wouldn't get me into power.”</p><p>“So the generals need to go too. I thought so.”</p><p>“They say you're a sorcerer of great power. Is there not some illusion, some subtle slow poison…”</p><p>“I left behind what I've placed my power in,” he said curtly, his voice wavering slightly. It was a dangerous thing to reveal, but she shouldn’t count on him being more capable than he was. It wasn't like he could sink much further. “I couldn't afford the chance he'd find it and strip it from me.”</p><p>“Oh. Hmm. Did you know it's said of you that you cut out your heart and hid it in a casket so you could never be killed?”</p><p>Mairon froze. She didn't seem to notice as she refilled his cup. “What? Where did you hear that? Who says it?”</p><p>“I don't know. Sailors bring stories from everywhere. I'd have thought it more of a metaphor anyway.”</p><p>Mairon felt sometimes that he had torn out his own heart to make the Ring, but that anyone would repeat such things... <i>Think of Melkor. It was for him. Everything will be worth it, in the end.</i> A glimpse of Tyelpë raised up on that pole haunted him. <i>Everything.</i> “The idea’s close enough.” He could draw on its power still, to some extent, but nothing like when he wore it, and he wondered again if it had been wise to split his ëala as he had. She didn't need to know that. “So. We have our wits, and little else. What would it take, do you think, to get him to do our work for us? To talk him into ruin?”</p><p>“It would be hard going. He holds you in contempt, and me likewise. You, perhaps, might win his ear in time. He'll never listen to me. He’d do the opposite of whatever I wanted just out of spite.”</p><p>“Would he now.”</p><p>Her eyes widened, and she grinned.</p><p>“Exactly. What else? Do you have no supporters? No loyalists to your blood?”</p><p>“There are some. They call themselves the Faithful, and they turn to me more because they dislike Pharazôn’s talk against the Valar than because they really believe in my lineage. But it's only grumbling, not meaningful support. They don't hate him enough for that.”</p><p>“That's something we should fix, then,” Mairon said slowly. His heart was sinking. He should have known this brief spot of light couldn't last. “They won't think too kindly of me, though.” He braced himself for her failed memory to connect the links, to realize why she should hate him too. They weren’t on the same side at all.</p><p>“You look scared. I don't care if it's true that you opposed them. What have the Valar ever done for us? Sitting over there in their perfect paradise while the rest of the world suffers? Holding immortality just out of reach and telling us we’re better off dying? They couldn't even be bothered to save Beleriand until my ancestors brought them a priceless jewel to buy their goodwill.”</p><p>Mairon didn't enumerate his part in that conflict.</p><p>“Not that I'd say that in public, you understand,” she continued. “The Faithful are the ones who make sure the poorest are fed and that orphans have homes, when my husband would as soon spend the treasury on conquering other people's lands while they all starve. I support what they stand for, I just don't think you should need the Valar’s say-so to do it. Assuming that's what the Valar actually want in the first place, which remains to be shown.”</p><p>Unexpected, but a relief. “I appreciate your graciousness. It won't change the fact that no lover of the Valar will accept me.”</p><p>She flashed a knowing smile. “Who said it would do us any good to appear to be on the same side? Outside this room, I think we should play enemies. I strengthen my base, move against what we want him to do, you win his confidence and push for it. Lead him right into our trap.”</p><p>It was only a beginning, but the bones of a plan were floating within reach. “Yes. I like where this is going. And when it’s done...” </p><p>“When it's done, when we've brought justice down on his head, we’ll truly be free. You’ll leave Númenor to me, and you’ll return to Mordor. After that, we’ll see what we have to gain from each other.”</p><p>He wondered if she thought she had outfoxed him into allying with her, but perhaps it didn't matter, so long as they both got what they needed. They understood each other. They understood ambition and strategy and revenge, and together they could achieve great things. He felt it deep inside, and the knowledge warmed him.</p><p>Her eyes strayed across the vast room to the open windows. The curtains stirred softly in the cool breeze. “The night’s growing old.” Her hand gripped his shoulder, and he leaned into it as if her touch could right everything that was wrong. “You should get some sleep if you can.”</p><p>“Are you leaving for bed now?” His voice sounded embarrassingly small. Being left alone suddenly felt unbearable. He shouldn't be relying on an incarnate, and a mortal at that, but here he was. If Melkor was watching from somewhere, he hoped he wouldn't scorn him.</p><p>“There is the little matter that this is my bed.”</p><p>“Oh.” He was to be kicked out of it, then. That was worse.</p><p>“I suppose Pharazôn thought he'd store his trophies all in the same place. Not that I'd expect him to consider your comfort.” She sighed. “I'll have some furniture brought for you tomorrow; we can arrange things so you have some privacy. In the meantime…”</p><p>Mairon swallowed hard. “I shouldn't put you out of your bed. I can sleep on the floor.”</p><p>“Not after the night you've had. I don't mind sharing, as you long as you understand that's not an invitation for—” </p><p>“I'm not interested in you like that,” he interrupted. “The only one whose touch I want that way is my Master of old.” <i>And Tyelpë,</i> he added deep in his heart, but he slammed down on that feeling. He wasn't looking at those thoughts. “And he…he's…lost,” he managed to choke out. He refused to cry again, but it was a near thing. </p><p>She softened. “I'm sorry. You probably don't want to think about that at all.”</p><p>He shook his head. “You had to be clear. I understand.”</p><p>She rose and brought him a plain robe of well-worn silk. “Here. Something clean to sleep in. I’d suggest the baths, but it's late, and you look like you aren't moving that far. And I'm not sure where I’m permitted to take you. I'm going to change behind the screen there; if you want to get cleaned up a bit, there's water by the washstand.”</p><p>He didn't want to move at all, but it was preferable to sleeping with the traces of rape on his body. The water in the ewer was softly fragrant of roses. He did feel a little better once he had washed, and Míriel held up the covers for him to climb under. In the soothing darkness that surrounded them, he sought her arms again. She was soft and warm, and he hadn’t realized he was still trembling. “We can do this,” she murmured against him. “We’re going to win. We just have to hold on until then.”</p><p>Mairon nodded and decided that tonight, at least, he could allow himself to need her. “I'm glad you're here with me.”</p><p>“So am I.”</p><p>Mairon's thoughts drifted as he lay there curled around her, far from sleep yet, but feeling for the first time a glimmer of hope. He had one more ring, the strongest of the Nine, that he had saved until he could find someone worthy. It might take years to win enough trust that he could send for it, but Pharazôn had allowed that he might contact his regent from time to time. He'd have to be cunning, but his servants could deal in subtlety; that's why he'd chosen them. He wondered if Míriel might be the one. If she'd accept. Honesty, he thought, would be the best approach with her. In time, when they’d taken each other's measure more fully. She would understand.</p>
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